It took him several hours to find what he was looking for. He'd started the day by driving slowly along the two-lane highway for miles outside of town, then turning around and retracing the same path again, trying to get it to fall into place. He drove more slowly each time, oblivious to the wailing of truck horns and the drivers who flipped him off as they passed him by.

He didn't know why he found it on the fifth pass. Perhaps it was the angle of the sun or the formation of the clouds above. But unlike his earlier trips, it just suddenly clicked into his head. The picture was right. This was it.

He pulled over and stared a moment, almost laughing at the irony. It was just a few miles outside Wind River, this ragged and overgrown path cutting across the fields and leading up into to the hills. He knew that many years ago the trail had actually been a narrow dirt road that eventually led to a small now-abandoned stone quarry. That deep hole cut in the rocks had filled with water years ago, making it the closest thing to a serviceable lake that this area had. It was like a huge swimming pool surrounded by trees.

He and his two best friends, Robbie and Bret, had come here often back when all they'd needed to rule their world were their bicycles. But that was a long time ago and he hadn't been up that path in maybe ten years now. And he'd give almost anything not to go up there now because he was desperately afraid of what he might find at the end of his journey.

Staring up at the hills, he wondered if he should just turn around and go on back home. Just keep one more secret. He'd been doing that for a long, long time now and he was good at it. There were many things that he made sure no one knew.

He suddenly realized that his hands were trembling as they gripped the steering wheel. Seeing that involuntary response finally propelled him out of the Jeep and onto the path.

He was fucking sick of keeping secrets.

It took him about twenty minutes to reach the quarry. From there, he wandered along the steep, sharply cut rocks making his way about halfway around to the far side of lake. He stopped, breathing hard. But it wasn't the heat of the summer sun that caused the sweat or the racing of his heart. It was because he knew that he was in the right place under the trees.

He smelled it before he saw it; the odor was an assault on his senses like nothing that he'd ever experienced and his stomach revolted immediately. After a moment, he moved down to the edge of the water and what he'd sought came into view, half under some overhanging rocks and half in the water. As he stared open-mouthed in repulsion, an overwhelming sense of betrayal swept over him.

Goddamn it, this wasn't supposed to be here. It wasn't supposed to be here. This whole trip had been about proving himself wrong. He turned away and stumbled as his gut lost the battle for control over the sight and the smell. His stomach emptied up on to the rocks and the sour, bitter taste burned his throat,

causing even more retching. He sank down to the ground in the miserable heat, coughing and gagging, his eyes watering as he gasped to bring in air between the heaves.

Shit. Oh shit, what was he going to do now?

=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--

"Hey Scully--why do men have nipples?"

Mulder watched his partner lift her attention from the case report file in her lap and squint over at him, clearly not sure she'd heard correctly. She also looked slightly irritated. Of course, she often looked that way on planes, so it wasn't necessarily directed at him. Scully hated having her personal space invaded and for the last four hours, they'd been packed in the tiny and miserably uncomfortable coach class seats. They'd made the space even smaller by turning the two seats into a mini-version of their FBI office with papers, files, and photographs spread everywhere.

"What?" she asked pointedly.

He repeated his question slowly as though she was hard of hearing. "Why do men have nipples?"

Scully followed his hand gesture to the magazine in his lap. He'd apparently put aside the interviews he'd been analyzing for hours and had picked up one of the airplane magazines. She leaned over and glanced down at the ad for Soloflex equipment. In it, an incredibly buff young couple was demonstrating the joys of the grossly overpriced exercise machine.

Scully barely deigned to glance at the female model, instead concentrating on the superb example of the male of the species. She drew a deep breath. Oh MY, she thought, taken by the sight of the stunning young man in the ad. God, it's been too damn long since I've seen something like that in person. Regaining her composure, she remembered that Mulder had asked her a question. She raised her eyes and looked at him, now trying to determine whether he was genuinely curious or merely bored and yanking her chain for his personal amusement. He was quite capable of both and God knows he'd been in an acidic mood lately.

But as she met his eyes, she saw that he wore the open expression that he got when he was concentrating on a mystery, a look that was almost child-like. He was indeed actually curious.

"Didn't they teach you biology in high school, Mulder?"

"Jesus, Scully, that was twenty years ago. Not to mention that at seventeen I was concentrating on other far more interesting biological matters. Trust me, I've got the important basics down.

She smiled at that and decided to accommodate him. "It's all about X's and Y's," she told him.

"Yeah, I know about the X's and Y's thing."

"Well, then you know that all embryos start out the same--all will develop into females by default. It's only the contribution of the Y chromosome from the father that initiates the chemical changes that makes an embryo into a male--"

"Way to go, Dad." Mulder grinned at her.

"Do you want to hear this or not?"

Mulder nodded, his expression promising that he would be good.

"OK. But that change doesn't happen until at about the tenth week of pregnancy, until then the embryo is still developing into a female. Without the Y, the gonads of the embryo develop into ovaries. But, if the embryo did get the Y chromosome, the labia fuse to form the scrotum and gonads begin to develop into testes which start to produce testosterone, then when the embryo is about fifteen or sixteen weeks old, its genitals start appearing."

"So I still have nipples because they'd already begun to develop before the switch-to-male signal is received? A sort of left-over souvenir from when men were more in touch with their feminine side?"

Scully nodded. "A little simplistic, but yeah, that's basically it. The development of breast tissue in the male halts, but for some reason the nipples are not reabsorbed. Although, there have even been a few reported cases of actual secretion of milk by an adult male."

Mulder gave a slight grimace. "There's an X-file I think I'd just as soon not get involved with."

"But mostly, it appears that you still have nipples because they cause no danger or detriment to the male, so natural selection hasn't caused them to disappear in the evolution of the human. In fact, they seem to be an area of extreme pleasure on some males even though they serve no real biological function."

Not that I've had any recent experience in seeing any male pleasure, she thought. As she watched Mulder digest the information, she wondered if he was so pleasure inclined in the nipple area; she'd come close to finding out once. As his eyes swept over the hard-muscled woman in the ad, Scully waited, knowing it would only be a moment before his mind moved on to other things.

"Hey Scully--so that's what your...the--" Mulder stumbled just a tad over the word.

"Yes, Mulder, that's exactly what the clitoris is," she answered, a little amused at his discomfort. While she wasn't in the habit of discussing her clitoris with her partner, it also wasn't often that she got an opportunity to twist him a bit. "Of course, males need a multitude of blood vessels and nerve endings in their penises to achieve and maintain erections. Because the penis and clitoris have their origins in the same structure, females have the same number of blood vessels and nerve endings, but packed into a much smaller area, resulting in the enhanced sensitivity of the clitoris. So, while you get to stand up when you pee, we get multiple orgasms. Personally, I think we won out in the game of genetics roulette."

Mulder squinted at her a bit. He knew all that stuff of course, but for some reason, he was having trouble coming up with a suitable smart-assed retort. So instead, he went with an alternative fallback position--changing the subject. He closed the magazine and nodded to the files in Scully's lap.

"You finish reading the locals' report?"

"Just finishing. It's a weird one, Mulder, even for us." She gestured at the horrific photos in her lap. "This kid knows amazing crime scene details--" Scully was interrupted by the announcement that the plane was about to land and that the descent would begin shortly. The agents turned their attention to cleaning up and packing away the masses of paperwork they'd managed to scatter all over the area.

Some of the crime scene photos slipped from Scully's lap to the floor and Mulder twisted down to retrieve them. He glanced at them just briefly, then averted his eyes as he handed them back. They were among the worst he'd ever seen, including his days with the VCS unit. Even in black and white they'd turned his stomach and triggered his gag reflex the first time he'd looked at them. As he'd struggled to form a profile, they'd imprinted on his mind and he'd had trouble dismissing the sights.

Six dead men had been found in the rural county areas just outside Wind River, Wyoming. All had been beaten to death.

Mulder knew that it took a long, long time to die that way.

It seemed the killer had taken quite some time, perhaps even days, to draw out his systematic destruction of the human body. The punishment had been merited out in increments. He'd taken his time to crush in ribs, shatter jaws, and fracture arms. Teeth were broken, eyeballs were ruptured, and internal organs were lacerated by blows from a blunt object or sharp bone ends punching inward. Faces were caved in from a blunt instrument.

It appeared that the final injuries to the face and head were delivered close to the moment of death. It seemed the perpetrator didn't want the victims to lose consciousness too fast or perhaps because it was more fun to draw out the pain with ever-increasing rage, but not enough to actually cause death. If it ended too soon, he wouldn't get to hear the sounds of pain being inflicted or any pleading or begging.

Mulder knew that would be the part that the killer liked best--That feeling of absolute power over life and death. He would want time to savor and enjoy it.

The final insult to the body came in the form of a shotgun blast to the face that was delivered post mortem. The reason for this wasn't to obscure the identity, because the victims were found with their wallets still on them. Instead, it seemed to be a final hateful act of erasing all that the person was.

He'd profiled more of these bastards than he could stand to remember back in his days with the VCS. He believed that in many ways, the human creatures that he'd chased down then were far more inexplicable and cruelly deviant than the inhuman creatures he and Scully had confronted over the last six years.

At first, the local Sheriff's Department hadn't even realized they had a serial killer on their hands. A couple of months ago, a body had been discovered on the roadside just outside of Wind River. They hadn't thought too much of it at the time. The man was a trucker from Idaho, he'd only been dead a few hours, and his abandoned truck had been found just a few miles away. They'd thought it to be a hijacking gone bad and there had been little evidence to investigate.

Then a couple of weeks later, a hunter found another body. The evidence showed that this victim had been tied or restrained, indicating that he'd been held for some time before his death. During the course of that investigation, yet another body was found in the same condition and they couldn't chalk this up to strange coincidence anymore.

Local law enforcement was at a loss. The victims hadn't been robbed; all still had wallets or other ID on them. Because of the vicious nature of the death, they had thought at first that the dead were victims of hate crimes. This theory had seemed more viable when it turned out that one of the victims had been gay. But the others were just average guys with none of the religious, sexual orientation or racial characteristics typically targeted by hate groups. None of the dead were local; they were all truckers or vacationers just passing through on their way to Yellowstone or other vacation spots. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the deaths.

But Mulder knew better than that. The killer or killers had a plan; they just hadn't discovered what it was yet. Of course, that would prove difficult because the plan could only make sense to a deranged person. They might even be dealing with two nutcases because although it was rare, serial killers did occasionally work in pairs.

But as horrific as these crimes were, it was neither his profiling abilities nor Scully's forensic skills that were the thing that brought them to Wind River. It wasn't the nature of the deaths, but rather, the nature of the single witness to the crimes that summoned them here.

Shortly after the third death, a young man walked into the Sheriff's station and told them he thought he knew something about the murders. Visibly shaken and agitated, he'd told them of an abandoned quarry and a decayed body. It seemed that he hadn't stumbled upon it while on a walk; he'd been seeing it in a dream for some time. The police were understandably skeptical, but deputies were sent out and sure enough, the dead man was exactly where the young man claimed that he would be.

He'd then proceeded to tell them where they could find two other bodies bringing the total of dead to six. He described all the details clear down to what color shirt the victims were wearing. He knew the particular injuries on the bodies. He knew exactly where among the hills and trees of the surrounding countryside that bodies had been left.

Based on the levels of decomposition, the last three victims found actually appeared to have been the first to die. The slaughter had been going on for much longer much than anyone had originally thought and the killer had been getting more brazen about leaving bodies about for people to find.

When this kid had started spouting details that only the investigators and county coroner knew, he was held for questioning. Under hours of interrogation, he'd brought forth even more details from the previous murders all the while insisting that he'd seen everything in a horrifying series of dreams that had started a few weeks ago.

The police weren't buying into this bullshit though and they were convinced they'd found their man.

But the longer they held him, the faster their case began to fall apart. They couldn't pin squat on this guy. They could find no connection with any of the victims. Search warrants executed on his house, work and Jeep didn't bring forth a single shred of physical evidence. No fingerprints, blood, hairs, fibers, dirt, or weapons. They found no trace evidence that belonged to the victims.

They'd had some hope when they discovered through credit card records that one of the victims had been at the tavern where the young man worked as a bartender. But one of the barmaids remembered the trucker because he'd come on to her. She told the Sheriff that she'd tallied his bill and he'd left the bar, got in his rig, and left town a good five hours before the kid had even finished his shift. He'd been in plain view of dozens of people when that murder had occurred. And just like that, their one lead evaporated.

He was actually still in police custody when the seventh dead man had been found. He'd awakened, screaming, in his cell. He begged them to go to the place he claimed to see in his dream. He'd become hysterical, begging them to make it all go away, he didn't want to see anymore. A doctor had to be called to sedate him.

The seventh victim was exactly where he'd said they'd find it. This was a fresh kill, not more than a few hours old. There was still-wet blood covering the body and puddles not quite soaked into the ground around and under it. This indicated the killer had dumped him off shortly after killing him and the heat of a summer day hadn't yet dried the blood.

The police were against a wall. They didn't have enough to hang a case on this kid, as much as they wanted to, and they didn't know what the hell to do next. They'd had to turn him loose although everyone was convinced that he was involved somehow. They had seven dead men and their only witness was a seemingly unstable young man with dream visions. They were certain that he was somehow a conspirator in the carnage but they couldn't prove a fucking thing. So, in the end, they called the FBI.

And Mulder and Scully were here to try to glean the truth of it all.

As the plane began its decent Mulder flipped open the remaining file still sitting in his lap. He carefully studied the photograph of the young man that he'd been dissecting mentally for the last two days.

Tristan Hunt was twenty-three years old, born and raised in Wind River, the son of a Shoshone mother and white father. His parents were both dead, one by cancer and the other by a heart attack and he'd pretty much been on his own since he was seventeen. By all accounts, his had just been a regular childhood with no history of physical abuse or psychological trauma in his family. There was no alcohol or drug abuse. He had no previous police record, not even a parking ticket. There were no known radical religious, political, or social affiliations. There were no previous claims of the paranormal or psychic abilities. At first blush, this case had seemed much like the one of Luther Boggs. However, the young man claimed no psychic aptitudes or channeling abilities. Indeed, he appeared to be terrified by what he was seeing and seemed to have no ability to control it.

He was a bartender at a tavern at the edge of Wind River where he apparently worked hard and was well liked by his co-workers. He sporadically attended the local junior college where he was slowly working his way towards a degree in graphic arts.

The search of his house turned up nothing more interesting than a few gay magazines and videos. While that probably created a storm of gossip buzz in the small town, as far as Mulder could tell, Tristan Hunt was just an average nobody, living out his life doing an average job in an average small town. There was nothing whatsoever to bind him to the murders.

Well, nothing except that he knew all about them because he'd seen them in dreams.

Mulder again wondered if he was looking at the accomplice of the serial killer. He'd been studying this young man for days, reading all the reports and background materials and interviews. But he also knew that paperwork never told the whole story.

Tristan Hunt's face was quietly gentle looking. But wasn't that what they said about all serial killers though? Still, it was a nice face; handsome by any standards, fair skinned with shaggy dark hair. Kind looking, Mulder thought again.

But the photograph taken at the police station also showed soft circles under the man's very dark brown eyes, and their expression was one of distress and weariness.

They were sad eyes, Mulder thought with a sudden pang of sympathy, much too sad for the kind face. He wondered if what the young man claimed to be seeing--and having nobody believe him--was consuming his spirit. Mulder understood that kind of despondency better than most.

And just like the first time he looked at this photo, the same thought struck him. It was his gut feeling that Tristan Hunt was not involved in these killings.

Mulder pushed that thought away immediately, glancing over at Scully almost guiltily. Looks were deceiving; he knew that better than most too. Certainly Scully would put little, if any, credence to a gut feeling. Especially if it was his, he thought with a flash of resentment.

Mulder put the file away. He turned his eyes and watched as Scully matter-of-factly reordered the gruesome autopsy photos back into their original sequence as though they were vacation pictures. He was always amazed by her ability to disassociate herself from the horrific things she saw. It was something he admired and wished he could do more of for himself.

But he also knew that on occasion that demeanor was a lie.

She'd always treated the few times that she'd given into a loss of emotional control with embarrassment. But once her lapse was over, it was never spoken of again. It was her way of putting her life back in its proper order. A few months ago, a nutcase stalker had almost killed her. She'd cried in fear and relief in his arms and then not another word was mentioned. Not one. She'd been through a horrific ordeal and as far as she was concerned, it hadn't happened.

He did know that she occasionally sought out the employee counseling resources at the FBI. What was discussed at these sessions, he had no clue. And even though he knew it was wrong, he still felt hurt that she would talk about what was going on in her head with a total stranger, but not with him. He knew that his hurt feelings weren't reasonable because discussing her problems with a disinterested third party was exactly what she should do. But it still bothered him to be shut out. After six years, he thought he deserved more of her trust. He'd earned it. And hadn't he given her all of his?

Last summer, in the middle of their biggest crisis together, she'd come to tell him that she was leaving the FBI. She'd insisted that her leaving shouldn't bother him because he didn't really need her anyway. It was only then that he'd understood that he'd done a poor job of letting her know just how important she was to both him and the work. And so he'd told her.

But in the ensuing months, no reciprocal words were ever forthcoming from her. Not then, and never once in all the time since. At first, he'd thought it was because they'd almost crossed that carefully drawn line in the sand between them and she was embarrassed by the memory of that moment. That was something he could understand, for the memory was awkward for him too. It was yet another thing they didn't talk about.

Lately though, the overwhelming feeling he carried was a low-burning resentment. He was able to rise above it most of the time and they worked together just as they always did. But that status quo was troubling too. After six years, he believed that he'd earned the right not to have Scully immediately reject or mockingly ridicule his every theory. After six years, he was increasingly weary of her automatic negativity that came more from habit than from any real sense that he might be wrong. He didn't mind being questioned; he would expect no less of her. However, he did mind being smugly dismissed. He was tired of being made to feel so damned isolated.

Mulder turned his eyes to look out the window. Everything in his life was about this job and so little was about him. That didn't used to bother him so much, but after nearly suffocating to death alone in a dark hallway in Florida, he'd begun question why he continued to do this. He wondered if anything he did mattered to anyone. He kept thinking he'd get over this funk, but so far, it hadn't happened, he just felt increasingly forlorn.

The truth was, he was tired of being physically isolated too. This was something he didn't let himself think about too often and it was also something that he tried to rise above. But it also was something that had been low-burning for a long time too, just as the other had.

Shit, the last person who'd touched him had been Kristen. A goddamn wanna-be Vampire who'd actually managed to be even more screwed up than himself. Still, she'd reached out for him and he'd felt needed for the first time since he couldn't remember. He'd fucked her roughly for hours as he'd tried to obliterate his feelings of loneliness and failure. Kristen hadn't minded for she was doing the exact same thing. He could still remember the intimate shuddering satisfaction of coming hard and deep within another person, temporarily relieving the ache. And there had been no one else since. Only himself.

He felt pathetic and embarrassed by that. And the really sad thing was, he fooled no one. Even that fucking ghost Maurice knew all about him. He'd called him a narcissistic, overzealous, self-righteous egomaniac. He'd told him that while he preferred to think of himself as single-minded, the reality was that he was just an anti-social, obsessive-compulsive, workaholic. He'd told him that he was a lonely man chasing paramasturbatory illusions that he believed would give his life meaning and significance and which his pathetic social maladjustment made impossible for him to find elsewhere. The worst truth had been the last one Maurice had dumped on him: that he was afraid of his own loneliness.

Psychoanalyzed by a ghost. Shit.

The worst part was that the dead bastard had been completely right on all counts. And if even the dead saw all that, it was probably pretty apparent to the living too. That Scully knew was particularly embarrassing. Although, it wasn't as though Scully had been on a date that he was aware of since she'd fucked some guy with a talking tattoo.

Ah well, at least his last sexual experience hadn't tried to shove him in an incinerator. At least his lunatic had tried to save his life. Surely, that counted for something.

So here he was--a pathetic, lonely, fucking loser. His only companion being his pathetic, lonely, fucking loser partner. FBI Monster Boy and the Mrs. were still shouting to the heavens that the sky was falling. Well, he was anyway--she still preferred to believe that it was all a delusion of his.

Suddenly Mulder smiled to himself. Boy, he had a really good melancholy going here, he was beginning to really enjoy this. He had to admit that there was something rather satisfying about a good healthy bout of self-pity. It was as snug as a feather bed, comforting in its own strange way. Yep, no one did morose better than Fox William Mulder.

He was jolted out of his thoughts when the plane bounced hard on the runway in a less than smooth landing and Mulder felt the g-forces at work as the brakes were applied. He instinctively looked over at Scully who wasn't the most comfortable flyer. She met his eyes briefly and nodded to show him that that she was fine before looking away. Of course, he thought, God forbid she'd admit to me that she was nervous about something.

He looked away as he sighed inwardly, chiding himself for his mental sarcasm. That wasn't fair. He was just in a crappy mood. God knows the human carnage he'd been looking at and reading about for the last two days certainly didn't help. He looked back at Scully's profile, mentally apologizing to her. He still trusted her with his life. He still believed that she kept him on balance. He knew that she would do virtually anything for him and when his back was against the wall, more often than not, Scully was standing next to him, although she apparently thought he was a fool most of the time.

But of course, that begot the question: Who was the bigger fool--the fool that leads or the fool that follows?

Jesus, there was simply no explaining the two of them. It was best not to think about it.

The plane taxied to a stop and he unbuckled his seat belt. He felt bone-deep weary the way the young man in the picture looked weary. Not physically tired, but emotionally depleted. Maybe he'd take some time off when this case was over.

=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--

Once setting down in Casper, it was an almost two-hour drive to Wind River; a small farming community set down in the Wind River Shoshone Indian Reservation with a population of hardly enough to count as a town. In fact, the stadium where the Washington Redskins played football held five times the entire population of Wind River.

Once there, they found the Sheriff's station and met Sheriff Dale Carmichael, the beleaguered law enforcement agent who'd called the FBI, and his Deputy, John Simmons. Mulder's initial assessment of Sheriff Carmichael was that he was professional and, to his credit, smart enough to know this was out of his league. These kinds of murders just didn't happen in this very rural area and he didn't have the training, funds, or manpower to deal with the situation. However, Mulder also took an instant dislike to Deputy Simmons who clearly thought they were crossing into his territory. There was a narrow-eyed meanness to the man that he didn't even try to hide.

Mulder and Scully were ushered into Sheriff's small office and the preliminary polite remarks were made and gotten out of the way.

"I want to thank you both for coming, I didn't know what the hell to do with this now. I can't make a case on this kid and I just can't fucking believe that this kind of horseshit is going on here." The Sheriff suddenly looked over at Scully. "Excuse me, Ma'am."

Scully smiled a little, "You can call me Agent Scully," she said, gently reminding him that she was a Federal Agent and neither a delicate flower nor a Ma'am. "So, I understand that we're meeting with Mr. Hunt."

Deputy Simmons nodded. "Yeah, he'll be here. I had to lean on him quite a bit to get him to come in. He's still claiming all those visions of his are driving him crazy. What the hell do you make of all that, Agent Mulder?"

Mulder sat forward in his chair. "We have quite a few files on this kind of phenomenon. You may know that many law enforcement agencies have used psychics to provide them with information--"

Scully interrupted him, "But usually their supposed knowledge is so vague and general that it can be interpreted in many ways, thereby rendering it useless."

Mulder looked at her a moment before turning back to finishing answering the Deputy's question. "As I was saying, rarely is there a case with the kind of specificity that Mr. Hunt has given. This is particularly unusual in that Mr. Hunt claims to have never had any kind of precognitive or remote viewing dreams before and--"

"And of course, claims of seeing a crime in a dream is often just a cover for other--"

"Do you mind if I finish my thought, Agent Scully?" Mulder's voice was sharp as he turned back to her.

Scully blinked in surprise and Mulder started to feel bad, but then stopped himself. Her tone had been dismissive and he was tired of being dismissed. After a moment's pause, she nodded slowly. The Sheriff and Deputy exchanged looks at the sudden tension flare between the two agents.

"Remote viewing?" the Sheriff asked to get the conversation rolling again.

Mulder turned his attention back to the locals. "There have been experiments to show that information can be exchanged mentally after the receiver is placed in an altered state of consciousness. Usually this is done with hypnosis and with a sender attempting to transmit certain information to a receiver. But there has also been research to see if information can be gained without requiring the altered state and without a sender."

"You mean like mind reading?" Deputy Simmons asked with an edge to his voice, clearly not liking the way that this conversation was going. As Mulder looked at him, he could see that he thought that they'd requested help from the FBI and had gotten Sigfried & Roy instead. This wasn't an unusual reaction, so it didn't bother him greatly.

"No, not really. Remote viewing experiments often involve the seeing of inanimate objects. There is no human sender. For example, a series of photographs will be left in an empty room and the receiver will try to target what is on the photograph. It's like looking at a picture in their mind. The Government was very interested in this technique in light of its ongoing espionage programs. Several thousand such trials have been conducted over the past twenty-five years, involving hundreds of participants. The cumulative database strongly indicates that information about actual scenes and events can be perceived."

The Sheriff appeared to be digesting this information a moment. Mulder knew that resigned look. The Sheriff wasn't as dubious as his Deputy, but he still didn't much like the answers he was getting. But if this was the help the FBI sent him, there wasn't much he could do about it. "So what are you going to do?" he asked.

"Right now I just want to talk to him, get a feel for what he's seeing. There are some tests I'd like to ask him to cooperate with." Mulder turned to Scully, now feeling a bit contrite about his earlier snarkiness and he tried to make amends. "Agent Scully is also a medical doctor and a forensic specialist. Her knowledge and input is invaluable to these investigations." He smiled a little at her. "There's no one better at getting dead men to tell tales."

Scully smiled briefly in return, still a little taken aback by his earlier retort, but willing to let it go and move on. She was going to have to find out what was going on in his head, she thought. But now wasn't the time. She turned her attention back to the Sheriff.

"Sheriff, do you know this Tristan Hunt? I mean from before all this?"

"Yeah, he's lived here all his life. I know him mostly by sight, I mean. He's never been in any trouble, but you know that from the reports. Mostly, he was always the guy who called me from the bar when we needed to go in and break up a fight or deal with a drunk. The gay thing was a hell of a surprise, but this ain't exactly a town where you can pursue that lifestyle in the open, if you know what I mean."

Deputy Simmons continued. "We interrogated him damn hard and there was never one single crack in his story. Not one. Now that's unusual, because as you know, even people that are innocent forget things or get things mixed up. Whatever his story is, he's covering it up damn well. But we'll get the little bastard, sooner or later."

Mulder was annoyed at Simmons' manner and words. As he looked at him, he saw a contempt for this kid that bespoke a hostility beyond a murder investigation. But before he could say anything, the Sheriff spoke again.

"Agents, this is a small town; I don't have the staff or the funds to put a tail on this guy twenty-four hours a day. The coroner is way the hell over in Casper and like I said, shit like this just doesn't happen here."

Mulder turned his eyes away from the hard stare of Deputy Simmons. "Well, it seems to be happening here now, Sheriff. And maybe you're busy concentrating on the wrong suspect while the right one is planning his next murder." Out of the coroner of his eye, he saw Simmons' face go dark with anger and Mulder felt nicely pleased that his shot had struck home.

Simmons got up. "I have reports to write." And with a curt nod to the Sheriff, he left the room.

Just as he exited, the receptionist stuck her head in the room. "Tristan Hunt is here."

"Ask him to wait in the briefing room for us." Sheriff Carmichael turned back to the Agents. "You ready to talk to him now?"

"Let's do it," Scully answered.

=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--

Tristan Hunt literally sat on the edge of his seat, looking around the briefing room of the Sheriff station, trying to quell the feeling of wanting to bolt out of the room. He pushed his long hair out of his eyes and felt morosely grateful that at least they hadn't stuck him back inside the interrogation room with no windows. He'd spent over ten hours in that room as the deputies took turns bearing down on him, questioning everything, making him repeat and repeat and repeat until he was crazy with it. They tore at him on every level they could think of. They tried to trip him up with every word he uttered. They'd beat him up emotionally, little caring that he was already so close to going insane that just going home and blowing his brains out to end the torment in his head was looking pretty good. At one point confession almost seemed like a good idea, anything to get them to shut up. Anything to get them to leave him alone.

And still no one believed him. They didn't care about the ugliness he was seeing and the terror he felt or that he was afraid to be asleep or even be alone or in the dark. He'd come to them for help and instead, they'd invaded the sanctuary of his home, the only place he could be himself. Now his well-kept secret was out. It was not only out; it was in the papers and on the lips of every gossip in town. Now the people in his own hometown couldn't decide if being a suspected murderer or a known homosexual was worse.

Either way, he was fucked. He was not only outed; he was outcast and totally on his own now. He'd abandoned that useless court-appointed attorney who'd just kept telling him to keep his mouth shut. Somehow, Tristan knew that keeping his mouth shut just might eventually get him sent to prison for these murders. But he also knew that every word offered them was just more opportunity to hang this all on him.

He was in over his head and drowning fast. He needed help.

He got up and looked out the window that faced west. It was late afternoon and the sun felt warm on his face. He thought about California again. He'd never been there, never even been out of the state. But he wanted to see the ocean, he wanted to walk in the crunchy sand and feel the salt-water lap on his feet. He wanted to get the hell out of here. He'd been "requested" not to leave town but his own reasons for staying were selfish. He had to get these visions out of his head and running away wasn't going to do that.

But God, he just wanted to get out of here and see the ocean. Was that too much to ask?

He heard the door open behind him and turned back around. Into the room stepped Sheriff Carmichael, followed by a woman, a pretty redhead in a black suit and sensible shoes. When she met his eyes, her face was a calm, professionally composed mask. After her, in walked a brown-haired man who was about his height, but a more slender build. He was outrageously handsome and wearing an expensive suit.

But unlike the woman, when Tristan met the man's eyes, he nodded to him. There was no smile, but the simple acknowledgment of his existence made him feel a little more at ease for some reason. They all approached each other cautiously, meeting in the center of the room over the conference table like gunfighters at the OK corral.

Sheriff Carmichael made the introduction. "Mr. Hunt, this is Agent Mulder and Agent Scully from the FBI." The Sheriff didn't indicate which agent was which, although Tristan didn't expect that it mattered much. They were all the same in the end. The woman extended her hand to him and he took it. He then took the hand offered by the man and again, the man looked at him instead of through him.

"Mr. Hunt, thank you for coming down to talk with us," the redhead told him.

"Like I had a choice."

She ignored the dig. "Why don't we sit down?"

They all sat across the table from each other. Tristan by himself on one side with the other three facing him. The man dropped a notebook on the table, leaned forward, and folded his hands on top of it. Tristan found himself looking at them. They were large with slender fingers; a city boy's hands, unmarked by hard manual labor. But strong looking still. Then Tristan heard the man speak to him for the first time, drawing his eyes back up to his face.

"Mr. Hunt, we've come to talk to you about what you've been seeing."

Tristan sighed as he just focused back on the agent's hands on the table. God he was tired, but he couldn't sleep, he couldn't rest. It took him a long time to work up the energy to answer. "I don't know what more you think I can tell you."

"I've read the reports, but I want to hear your version."

Tristan lifted his gaze and looked at the two agents as they waited. His years as a bartender had helped him learn to size up people pretty quickly; who was going to be trouble and who wasn't.

He noticed that the redhead's careful professional mask had slipped a bit in response to his earlier sarcasm. She's a problem, he thought, she's made her mind up, she thinks I'm involved. He then looked over at the man, who stared resolutely back at him, meeting his eyes in a way people didn't do much of anymore. This one is more open. Not a fool, but maybe willing to listen. But then again, he was tired, he could be wrong and he couldn't afford to make any mistakes here with these people.

"Mr. Hunt?"

The woman's voice interrupted his thoughts, drawing his attention back over to her as he realized that he'd held the hazel-eyed man's gaze for a long time. "Mr. Hunt, do you have something to tell us?" she asked.

Did he? He looked back at man who nodded to him. Feeling slightly encouraged for reasons he didn't quite understand, Tristan began to tell his story one more time.

The man and the woman both took notes.

=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--

Mulder watched Tristan Hunt's body language as he talked. Body language told volumes and this kid exhibited none of the mannerisms that his experience told him were indicative of a liar. The young man was under high stress, but not because he was hiding something. It seemed to be more a frustration because he couldn't get anyone to take him seriously.

And he clearly didn't expect to be taken seriously here.

He looked younger in person, Mulder thought. His long dark black hair was slightly mussed and he pushed it out of his eyes often. That gesture was telling. He'd seen suspects, male and female, use their hair as a veil, hiding behind it, bowing their heads and peering out so that people couldn't see them.

But Tristan Hunt had no trouble meeting them in the eye. His eyes were so dark brown they seemed almost black, and they stared back at him directly. A little too intently actually; Mulder almost felt like he was the one being sized up rather than the other way around.

He looked like he hadn't shaved that day and his clothing was rather haphazard. A white cotton shirt that had been new ten years ago, clean but completely ratty. He wore it loose and untucked over jeans whose holes came from time and wear, not because he'd bought them that way in a trendy store. He wore work boots that looked to be about as old as the shirt, something he found comfortable and wasn't about to give up on. He was very handsome and yet not the least concerned about showing it off. That too, was telling, Mulder thought.

The story he told was pretty much what Mulder expected to hear.

He'd had the first dream almost two months ago. At first, he hadn't even realized that they meant anything. He'd simply thought it was just a nightmare. He'd awakened in the middle of the first one, sweating from the effort of trying to force his way out of the dream.

"You know how when you're dreaming and you keep telling yourself to wake up, because you know it's not real?" Tristan asked and Mulder nodded. "It was that kind of thing at first. I just put it out of my mind and went back to sleep. In the morning I only had vague recollections of it, like any other dream."

"When did you connect them to the murders?" Scully asked.

Tristan looked over at her. "Like I said, I wasn't having them all the time. I hadn't even realized that someone had been killed at about the same time. I just thought they were a nightmare. Then I kept having the same dream over and over and that's when I found the body at the quarry."

"And you still haven't seen anything that would give you an indication of who might be doing this?"

He shook his head. "What I see isn't like a movie. It's like a still photograph. But I only see them after they're dead, where they are."

Mulder sat forward a little bit. "Mr. Hunt, would you be willing to be hypnotized?"

The brown eyes stared at him with suspicion. "Hypnotized? What for?"

"Sometimes hypnotism can help you remember details that your conscious mind is having trouble with."

Tristan didn't like the sound of that. He didn't know much about it, but it all sounded like something that they would use to get him to incriminate himself somehow -- Maybe he needed that lawyer back after all. Shit, these people weren't even going to give him a chance. "I've told you everything I've seen. It won't help."

But the man persisted. "Have you ever been hypnotized?"

"No."

"Well, let me explain to you how it works--"

"I don't need you to explain anything. It won't help, it's just psychobabble bullshit."

The room fell quiet at this outburst and after a moment, the redhead leaned over and whispered something in the lanky one's ear. He said something back to her quietly and although they were only right across the table, Tristan couldn't hear what was being said, it was as though their low tones were something only the two of them could hear. The two agents stared at each other a moment and Tristan sensed a conflict in the air. After a moment the man nodded and the woman turned back to him. "Mr. Hunt, would you be willing to let me conduct some medical tests?"

Tristan sighed. Jesus Christ, what was this? "What kind of tests?"

"An EEG, an MRI. I want to see if we can detect any unusual brain patterns or something else that might explain what you say is happening to you."

Suddenly Tristan smiled, but it was full of sarcasm. "What? You think I have a brain tumor that's suddenly causing all this? I saw that movie--it didn't end well. No thanks."

She looked at him steadily, clearly loosing patience. "Mr. Hunt, the bottom line here is that in spite of what you're claiming to see, so far, we still don't have anything that will lead us to the person or persons committing these murders."

Tristan, equally impatient, pushed his chair back. "Well, I guess that's it then isn't it?" he said as he stood up. "So since we're done here, I need to get to work." Tristan picked up his jacket and headed towards the door.

But the man's voice followed him. "Mr. Hunt, all we want is to help find the killer."

Tristan turned around at the last remark, staring down the man. "No, I think what you want is to help me find my way into life in prison without possibility of parole," he said angrily. "Sorry, but I'm not ready to become the boy-toy of some con named Bruno just yet."

The man now stood up, came around the table, and walked towards him. But oddly enough as he approached Tristan saw that his expression in response to his outburst was sympathetic, quite different from the antagonistic manner he'd come to expect from the Law enforcement around here. He wasn't quite sure what to make of that. Like anyone who watched TV he was familiar with good cop/bad cop. Was he being played?

"I'd like to talk to you some more about this," the man requested as he approached, looking him directly. When he didn't reply, he added in the same quiet tone from earlier, "I do want to help you, Mr. Hunt."

For a moment, Tristan just stared back at him, his eyes narrowing slightly. God, he'd been praying for those words. But now as he heard them, as much as he wanted to believe, he also had to consider the possibility that he was being played for a fool. He opened the door to leave, but then hesitated. Shit. He needed help, he knew that. There was only the slimmest chance that he could trust this man. But his only other alternative was to keep forging ahead on his own and look where that had gotten him. But there was no reason to believe--

"Mr. Hunt?"

Thoughts broken, Tristan focused back to the man who waited patiently. As he looked into quiet hazel eyes, he took a both deep breath and a leap of faith. "I'm at the bar between six and two. Things slow down after eleven on a weeknight."

The man nodded. And with that, Tristan walked out of the Sheriff's station. Still a free man. For now anyway.

=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--

Mulder watched the door swing shut after the departing man, then turned back and looked at his partner. "That went well, don't you think, Scully?"

Scully quite used to things going just about that well, sighed a little as she shook her head and stood up.

Sheriff Carmichael looked at the two of them; He'd clearly been hoping for a little more progress. "Now what?" he asked.

Scully answered first. "I have an appointment tomorrow morning at the coroner's office back in Casper."

"And I want to look over the crime scenes tomorrow. I'm going to see if I can get Mr. Hunt to go with me," Mulder answered.

The Sheriff snorted. "Good luck."

Mulder shook his head. "He's scared, Sheriff. He's afraid of what he's seeing, he's scared because he's a suspect, and he's scared because he knows everyone is wondering about him. He has no reason to trust or cooperate with us. But if we can get him past that fear, he may have more answers than he thinks."

The Sheriff shrugged, not at all convinced.

Mulder and Scully made their farewells and headed for their motel. They checked in to their respective rooms, called into the office, checked their email, changed clothes, and met for dinner at a diner directly across the street where the food was surprisingly good. After dinner, Scully wanted to head back to the motel since she had a long drive tomorrow and she had files to review further and they agreed that Mulder would go on to talk with Tristan Hunt on his own. So Mulder dropped his partner off at the motel and headed down the short distance to the bar where Tristan Hunt worked. It turned out to be so near the motel he could have walked.

Mulder entered the small tavern a little before eleven and as Hunt had said, it wasn't terribly crowded. He looked around feeling instantly out of place among the truckers and local ranchers. A jukebox was playing some country song that Mulder didn't recognize; not that he had a clue about country music. If someone had a gun to his head, he could probably name off Garth Brooks but that would be about the extent of his knowledge of the genre.

Mulder crossed the room and sat down at end of the long bar. The barmaid, a very pretty blond, saw him and perked up quite noticeably as she headed over. Mulder was not unaware that on occasion some women, certain short redheads excepted, seemed to actually find him attractive and for a moment he wondered about the possibility of getting laid in Wind River, Wyoming. It might be nice to be able to say he'd closed out the decade by getting laid twice. Hell, once every five years should be enough for anybody, he didn't want to be greedy.

Of course, with his luck, this one was probably a werewolf in her spare time.

Besides, he had work to do. Fuck. Didn't he always?

The blond favored him a dazzling smile. "Hey, handsome. Can I do something for you?" Her voice was positively lilting.

"I need to speak with Tristan Hunt."

"He's in the back, but I can surely get you a drink, honey."

She leaned over the bar a little in order to provide him with a better view of her rather imposing breasts and Mulder realized that even in a Podunk town a plastic surgeon could probably make a great living. Unlike many of his gender, he'd never really been a big-tit fan. Indeed in the videos he was so fond of, he often found the huge triple-D silicone, or whatever the fuck they were using now, boobs to be a bit coarse rather than sensual. He'd always found a good-sized handful or mouthful the most appealing, not something that could double as floatation devices. He even had a slight PC guilt that his fellow males had created a world in which women of low self-esteem were driven to major surgery to achieve what they had been convinced was the ideal.

But even so, he had to admit that these were an impressive matched set. He forced himself to raise his eyes back up to her face.

"I'm June. And if you'll just tell me what you'd like, I'll get it for you." She was practically purring. "Maybe you're a bit hungry, we offer all kinds of nibbles."

She smiled for him again and her tone left no doubt as to what she'd like to nibble. Mulder was pretty sure he wouldn't have any balls left by the time she was done and he felt a quickening deep in his groin. Good Lord.

Mulder swallowed, "Ah, I just had dinner, thanks."

"Well, I'm sure we have something here that you might want."

Just then, Tristan came out of the back room, carrying some liquor bottles. When he saw the FBI man, he stopped up short in surprise before continuing his approach. His first thought was that he really hadn't expected him to show up.

And oh, God, he's fucking gorgeous, was his second.

He noted the man had changed and was wearing just a dark gray T-shirt and jeans. He looked much younger and much less threatening in that get-up. And hot. Very, very hot. Nice arms. Long legs. He could hardly blame June for trolling big time, just looking at this guy hurt. But even so, he knew it was a useless emotion for himself, his Gaydar was never wrong.

Shit. Why are all the good ones straight?

Of course, why did he have to be gay in a state where anything that even remotely resembled a gay community was in Casper, almost ninety miles away? And you could hardly even call it a community; it was more like a couple bars and clubs. Basically, driving four hours round trip to get fucked was, well, fucked. And why didn't something gay that looked that hot ever come into this damn bar?

Tristan's thoughts shifted out his self-pity mode and he again wondered just how far he could trust this guy. His life had spun out of control and he couldn't make it stop. He'd thought that by telling about the dreams, by helping, it would all go away. But it hadn't; in fact, he'd only make it worse.

And now all he wanted was for this all to be over. He needed someone to help him make this all be over. And this man said he wanted to help.

But could he trust him with his life?

Tristan came up behind the barmaid and patted her ass affectionately as he put the bottles down. "June, honey, would you mind not resting your hooters on the bar? I just wiped up the drool from the last one."

June looked up at him and smiled, completely uninsulted. "Just trying to service the customers, Tris."

"This ain't a customer. He's from the FBI."

Mulder watched as June's face changed and her friendliness disappeared. "You don't have to put up with them hassling you here. You want me to get Robbie to throw his ass out?" Without waiting for an answer, she turned and motioned to a man who sat on a stool at the opposite end of the bar.

Mulder followed her look to a rather unfriendly-looking man who seemed a foot taller and four feet wider even from here. He glared in their direction, got up and lumbered over, getting bigger as he approached. "I'm the manager, is there a problem?" he asked in the least customer service-oriented voice Mulder had ever heard.

Mulder looked up at the hulk towering over him. Shit, was he about to get his ass kicked in a redneck bar? Scully would die laughing. "Look, I'm--"

But Tristan interrupted him. "No, it's cool, Robbie. He's just here for a drink." Tristan now looked directly at Mulder for the first time and Mulder could see the kid was actually amused. Fucking little bastard.

Robbie looked at Tristan, then nodded and wandered back to his barstool perch.

Tristan turned back to him. "So, you here for a drink or to pick at my brain some more?"

"We can start with a beer."

"Draft?"

"You got Tecate?" Tristan nodded and moved off get the beer. June however, just fixed him with a hard look. Though not much older than Tristan, she was now a blond mother-bear.

"What?" Mulder asked in exasperation.

She nodded at Tristan. "That boy didn't do anything. He didn't kill any of those people."

"That may very well be true. Actually I think it is."

June looked surprised and slowly some of her bluster left. She leaned forward. "What are you going to do about that?"

"The only way I know how to help him is to find the person who is doing the murders. The problem is that right now, Mr. Hunt seems to be the only person who can help us do that."

June sighed at the circular logic. "A lot of the people in this town have been real shit heads. Tris has never done a thing to deserve any of it. I can't believe how they've turned on him. His personal life is his own." She glanced down toward Tris at the other end of the bar, leaned towards Mulder a little and whispering. "I mean, if he's funny that way...you know...it don't make him a murderer."

Mulder nodded, as he understood that her heart was in the right place even if her PC phrasing was a little off. Just then, Tristan returned with his beer. June patted him affectionately and moved off to talk to the large Robbie, who brightened considerably upon her return when she smiled at him.

Mulder sighed. Oh sure, even burly lumberjacks with three teeth could do better than him. Tristan set the beer on the bar in front of him. "Three bucks."

He dug in his pocket and paid the man. "You have an ally," Mulder told him, nodding in June's direction as he took a drink of his beer.

He saw Tristan genuinely smile for the first time ever as he followed his glance. "June? Yeah. Unlike most of the people in this town, she doesn't damn me with a lie and she doesn't damn me with the truth."

"The truth?"

Tristan Hunt's smile now turned scornful as he looked back at him. "You've heard of a one-horse town? Well, this is a one-fag town and you're looking at him."

Mulder didn't know how to answer that. In fact, the whole topic made him uncomfortable. He knew what it was like to be the odd man out in a small town, to feel isolated and shunned. But of course, this really wasn't the same situation at all. People didn't commit hate crimes against you simply because you believed your sister was taken by aliens. No one beat you and then hauled you out, tied you to a fence, and left you to die slowly of exposure because you believed in government conspiracies and they didn't.

But even so, whether the cause was circumstance or ignorance, the end result was still isolation.

So instead of answering, he took another swig of icy beer. God, it tasted especially good for some reason. It had been a long, long time since he'd just sat at a bar among regular people and had a drink and it gave him a moment to plan how to best gain the young man's trust.

"Can I ask you something?" Tristan's voice interrupted his thoughts.

Mulder nodded as he set the beer down, and wiped his lower lip with his thumb, not noticing that Tristan watched that movement intently. "What?"

"Are you Mulder or are you Scully?" Tristan watched as the handsome man looked puzzled for a moment before the realization dawned on him. Then just a small gleam of humor crossed into his eyes. It looked nice on him.

"I'm Mulder. Fox Mulder. My partner is Dana Scully."

"Fox?"

"Mulder. Just Mulder."

"OK, fine. Mulder. So what do you want to talk about?"

Before answering, Mulder took another drink of his beer and Tristan's gaze ran down his throat as he put his head back and swallowed. He swallowed hard too. All the good ones are straight, he reminded himself again.

"Mr. Hunt, I don't think I really got an opportunity to fully explain what my partner and I do. We're part of the FBI, but we're a special unit that specializes in claims of strange phenomena."

Tristan considered Mulder's statement a moment; again, this was not what he was expecting. Where the hell was this leading? "Like what?" he finally asked.

"Paranormal activity, poltergeist phenomena, alien sightings--"

Tristan broke into Mulder's litany. "When you say alien sightings, you don't mean illegal immigrants, do you?"

The agent shook his head and took another drink. Tristan's moment of hope began to die in his chest, bringing with it a feeling of despair and bitter disappointment. Shit. This guy was just here to prove he was a nut. He had been played; the man's kind eyes and gentle voice had suckered him in. Shit.

Mulder looked up and saw the change in the young man's eyes. "Mr. Hunt, I know what you're thinking." At Tristan's challenging glare, he continued. "I know you think I'm here to prove you wrong. But actually, I'm here to prove you right. I believe that you're seeing what you claim."

"Why should you believe me?"

"Because it's what I do. And yours is not the first case like this I've seen." Mulder didn't tell Tristan that indeed, he'd had his own close experience with terrifying dreams.

Tristan wavered. "Your partner doesn't believe me. I can tell just looking at her."

Mulder couldn't help but smile inwardly a bit. Whatever else he may be, Tristan Hunt was an intuitive guy. "Well, my partner always needs a little more hard evidence. But that's a damn good thing for you, Mr. Hunt, because frankly, all the courts care about is hard evidence. But Scully wants the same thing I want, even if our methods are different. So tomorrow she's going over to reexamine the available bodies and trace evidence over at the Natrona County coroner's office and I'm going to go reexamine the sites where the bodies were found." Mulder paused a moment. "I'd like you to go with me."

Tristan shook his head. "No. I don't think I want to do that."

"It would be in your best interests to cooperate here, Mr. Hunt--"

"Oh, I tried that," Tristan answered sarcastically. "I was the good little dutiful citizen. And it got me made into a murder suspect. It got me arrested and watched and hounded. It got my personal life splashed in the papers. It got my home invaded and everything I own, all my books and letters and photos, pawed through and examined by strangers intent on proving I did something I didn't do. I've talked to cops and lawyers and doctors and now you. I've had quite enough of cooperating, thank you."

Mulder pressed on, replying with equal intensity. "Well, then I don't need to tell you that Sheriff Carmichael is itching to tie you to these murders. And you're right; he doesn't believe for a second that you're not involved somehow. Considering that my partner and I aren't exactly the kind of help he was expecting, he's feeling pretty pissy at the moment. Now I know how you're feeling..."

Tristan leaned his hands on the bar, his voice low and angry, his face in Mulder's. "You haven't got the slightest Goddamn idea how I'm feeling. In this town, gay people are the comic sidekicks on TV sitcoms and that's fine. But they sure as hell better not move in next door. They damn well better not live openly together or touch each other in public. They better not hold jobs where anyone knows. Gay people are not welcome to be out in this town, Agent Mulder. The only reason I've been able to keep this job is because most of customers are truckers who are passing through. They don't know."

Mulder's response was calm, trying to defuse the situation. "I didn't mean to imply that I understand what it's like to be gay in a small town, Mr. Hunt. Obviously, I don't. That's not what I meant at all. But I do know that you need help."

Tristan looked at him hard before turning away. He needed to think things through a moment so he stepped away from the FBI agent. He walked over to the cooler and pulled out another Tecate. Against all odds, he wanted to believe this man meant him no harm and he wasn't sure why. Maybe he was just so desperate now that he was ready to grasp out for anything that looked like an outstretched hand. He walked back to Mulder and set the beer in front of him, taking the empty away. "No charge."

Mulder nodded his thanks and took a drink, giving Tristan a bit of time. He watched the young man cross his arms and gaze off over the bar, his expression tired and worn. And Mulder again felt that his hunch about this kid was right. He was haunted by what was happening to him.

After a few minutes of silence, Tristan finally spoke softly. "You know, for most of my life in this town I've just been 'Tristan' and I worked hard to keep it that way, to fit in." He looked back a Mulder. "I mean, I was pretty much OK with just staying in my little closet and pursuing what little of my life that I could on the side and in the dark. But now I'm that 'fag bartender who's probably murderer too.' I can't go to the grocery store, rent a video or eat in a restaurant without the staring and whispering and pointing. People I've known all my life pull their children away if I pass too close. And of course, some of our more creative folks feel the need to send me hate mail and some detailed death threats. I've got myself a nice little collection going--only they can't decide if I should be dead because I’m a murderer or because I’m gay. And it's become abundantly clear that I'll never be just Tristan again; almost everything that was familiar about my life is gone now."

Mulder looked up at the troubled young man, feeling frustrated at his plight. "I don't know what to say, Mr. Hunt. I'm sorry. I'm sorry this is happening to you. But I need you to help me. I can't do it alone and neither can you." Mulder paused and then tried again. "Will you at least meet me at the Sheriff's station tomorrow so we can talk some more about what's been happening?"

And even as he wondered if he was making the biggest mistake of his life, Tristan nodded.

=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--

An hour later, Mulder unlocked the door to his room at the motel, which was really a small L-shaped motor court that catered to truckers who stopped over on long transcontinental hauls. He glanced at Scully's window, which was about six doors down from his. Not surprisingly, her light was out.

He opened his door, flipped on the overhead light that illuminated just another nondescript motel room. Not bad and not great. There was a sitting area by the window next to the door overlooking the front parking lot and across the room, the bed was by another window that overlooked the back parking lot.

Wow, a room with two views, how did he ever get so lucky?

He wandered over to the TV and picked up the guide, hoping against hope. Oh yes, this dump had an adult channel, something he could probably thank the trucker clientele for. He needed something to wind down with. Of course, the beers he'd consumed in his effort to draw Tristan Hunt out were certainly helping there. After he'd gotten him to agree to meet him tomorrow, June had come back over. She'd proceeded to regale him with tales of small town life during the course of which more beers were consumed. He was actually feeling pretty good indeed, with a nice little seldom-felt buzz going.

He closed the curtains and turned on the small air conditioner that spit out a nice breeze. He stripped his clothes off, wandered into the bathroom, and turned the shower on. As the steam began to rise he stepped in and stood under the soothing flow. One of the few advantages of motels was the almost unlimited amount of warm water. It was actually too damn hot for a hot shower, but Mulder had a fastidious streak that demanded that hot water be used for cleansing.

He soaped down his body absently, wondering how he could possibly get this kid Hunt out of the mess he was in. After today and this evening, he was more convinced than ever that he needed help, not persecution.

But as he touched his body, thoughts of helping Tristan Hunt began to fade to be replaced with the need to satisfy other far more basic urges. The tension of the day left him feeling pent-up, in need of the release and fleeting bliss of orgasm, in need of the temporary amnesia it brought.

He flipped the shower handle over to cool to rinse off, lowering his skin temperature, but doing nothing to diminish the erection forming as he touched himself, stroking slowly down to smooth the soap from his body. He got out of the shower and lightly toweled off his hair. He then ran the rough towel over his body, feeling the friction over his sensitized skin, digging into every nook and cranny. Tossing the towel aside, he brushed his teeth as though he was getting ready for a date.

Yeah, with my right hand, he thought.

He headed back into the bedroom area, remembering to bring a small hand towel with him. He moved to the bed and pushed off the ugly spread and blankets that it was far too hot for. He flopped his damp body down on the soft sheets, feeling the cool air from the fan waft over him, running over his skin like a gentle caress. Turning the light off, he grabbed the remote. He switched the TV on and joined the movie already in process. He settled back against the pillows, as the bluish light from the TV illuminated his body.

As the picture snapped into place, he was treated to the sight of two women deeply engaged in cunnilingus. Ah, he thought, the two-chick love scene, the staple of all great pornography. Watching two women go at it was one of his favorite things and he settled himself back to enjoy the show. He closed his eyes a moment and listened to the sounds. Mulder liked the noises of sex; when he closed his eyes, the sounds could become almost anyone in his mind.

He opened his eyes and looked down again at his body as his hands began to wander. He smoothed over his chest and then he idly began to caress one nipple, circling it with the two middle fingers of his hand. He twisted the nub slightly with his thumb and finger and watched it form a hardened peak.

His body amazed him sometimes. How the nerve endings reacted to touch and could actually change shapes in response. He thought for a moment about what Scully had told him about nipples that morning, a useless piece of decorative flesh and yet he was definitely one of those men for whom they were a pleasure center. He continued to caress his body, slowly, and remembering only vaguely what it was like to have someone else touch him affection, with a desire to please. He licked the tips of his fingers and reapplied them to the nipple, recalling what it was like to have someone's tongue stroke and soothe over them.

He trailed his right hand further down his body where he cupped his balls, rolling and squeezing gently at first and then with more pressure. He moved his hand and grasped on to his penis. He began to stroke the length of his penis, applying the usual and customary amount of friction. But tonight he was having trouble letting his mind go and concentrate on the matter at hand, or rather, in hand. While it certainly felt nice, things weren't solidifying up the way they usually did.

He turned his eyes back to the action on screen, knowing it would help. As he watched the woman lick the other to a heated, moaning, orgasm a new thought crossed his mind. Did women enjoy watching men screw each other? Would Scully find it exciting to see someone as good looking as Tristan Hunt go at it with another guy instead of a woman? The idea seemed strange to him, but maybe he was just being sexist.

But now that he thought about it, he realized he'd never seen two guys in a porn movie touch each other. There were plenty of scenes with two guys but there was always at least one woman sandwiched between them. Male flesh never touched male flesh. He knew there was gay porno, of course, but he'd never actually seen one. The catalogs and Internet sites that he availed himself of were oriented to the straight male.

What was it like to watch two guys fuck each other?

Mulder realized that his hand had stilled on his cock and that he'd completely lost his arousal concentration as his mind wandered. There was something infinitely weird about laying there thinking about the merits of gay porno while he clutched feebly at his own dick. He renewed his efforts, feeding his mind with the visual images before him, finally feeling the pressure within begin to build, as his penis finally grew stiffer within the circle of his hand.

A man had now joined the young women on the bed. And of course, they immediately devoted their full attention to him. Mulder knew this was because in the view of most male porno filmmakers, there were no actual lesbians in the world. There were just beautiful babes who made do until a real man came along to screw them.

The man in the movie was now getting a blowjob from one of the women while she was being finger-fucked by the other girl. As he watched the guy's cock slide in and out of the heavily lipsticked mouth, Mulder was pleased to see that his own penis was bigger. He never paid much attention to the dicks in the movies he watched except to do the obligatory size check. He usually won.

But now, he watched the man's hard ass muscles flex and release, flex and release as he pumped into the woman's mouth and helpfully announced he was about to come so she could double her efforts in servicing him. Mulder stroked himself harder, trying, as he usually did, to come along with the actors, who of course were not necessarily really coming. God, he was close, so close.

The man's face contorted as his thrusting became even more aggressive into the mouth of the woman and Mulder felt his balls draw up as his own orgasm approached in response to his stimulation. It was right on the edge, just a few more pulls; he was almost there, almost there. Mulder's eyes narrowed as he kept his attention on screen as the first wave of his release started to swell. The man on screen threw his head back and came, grunting loudly, his face contorted in painful pleasure and pumping gobs into the mouth of the woman who took it all down with glee.

Did Tristan Hunt look like that when he came with his dick in some guy's mouth?

Jesus Christ, where the HELL had that thought come from?

Mulder's hand stopped dead cold on his cock at the sudden picture in his head, but the orgasm that had started rolled right on though his body, flowing up his cock and out over his hand. He only made a soft grunting noise for he was usually pretty quiet when he masturbated, preferring to concentrate on the story he usually had going on in his head and the feelings building inside his body. He didn't feel the need to waste a lot of precious energy making noises that only he would hear. As his sperm splattered against his belly, his grip tightened and then relaxed back slowly. He lay there, spent, gently holding his cock, free floating.

He concentrated back on the feeling in his body. It was the same as usual. He'd achieved release, but not the hard, deep pleasure satisfaction he remembered from when he was younger. His orgasms were simply not what they once were and they hadn't been for a long, long time. Somewhere along the way, they'd become complacent. Nice, pleasant, merely OK.

Of course, Mulder knew that sexual responses were deeply tied to matters of self-esteem and personal worth. But those were things he didn't even want to begin to consider right now; he was way too tired for such introspection. He sighed, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, feeling slightly downhearted. His body slowly relaxed into the heavy, post-orgasm lethargy and it appeared that it was going to let him sleep tonight so that was good.

He took the hand towel and wiped himself clean. He picked up the remote and glanced up at the screen to shut the TV off. The man was kissing the woman who'd apparently just given him the blowjob of a lifetime. Mulder snapped the picture off, rolled over, and in the darkness, grasped one of the pillows into his arms, curling it close to his body.

He missed being kissed after sex.

Closing his eyes, he fell asleep almost immediately.

=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--

The next morning, Mulder met Scully for breakfast before she dropped him off at Sheriff's station and headed off to Casper.

Mulder met with Sheriff Carmichael in his office, where they were joined by Deputy Simmons who stared at him with smug satisfaction. "I understand that you and your partner got squat out of Hunt yesterday."

Mulder ignored the bait and turned to the Sheriff. "I talked to Tristan Hunt a little more last night. I was able to persuade him to come by and talk to us some more, I'm still hoping to get him to go out to the crime scenes." Mulder hesitated a moment. He knew he had to proceed slowly with local law enforcement and Scully was usually more tactful than he was, but something Tristan had mentioned last night had been weighing on him. "Sheriff, Mr. Hunt told me he'd been getting hate mail that's included some death threats."

The Sheriff gave him a questioning look. "He didn't say anything to me." He glanced over at his Deputy.

Simmons shrugged a little, unconcerned. "Yeah, he mentioned them."

Mulder couldn't keep the edge out of his voice. "Have you done any investigation? Last I heard threatening someone's life is a crime."

"If people want to blow off a little steam, I can't stop them. We have a lot bigger things to worry about than that."

"So you're just going to look the other way, Deputy? Hasn't tolerating that kind of social hate caused some awfully tragic events in this state in recent years?"

The Deputy sat up with a flash of anger. "That's old news, Agent Mulder. What happened to that Shepard kid over at Laramie has nothing to do with this."

Mulder's voice was rising. "No? Well, then did it ever occur to you to examine the letters for fingerprints or DNA or other evidence? It's not unheard of that one could actually be from the killer gloating over the fact that someone else is taking the heat."

"That someone IS the murderer, Agent Mulder," the Deputy answered belligerently.

"That's not how it works, Simmons; you don't pick out a suspect and then make the evidence fit." Mulder looked at him coldly as it suddenly became so clear now. "You did it. You're Mr. Off-The-Record. You've leaked it all to the press and the town grapevine, didn't you? You fingered him as the prime suspect, then divulged his personal life knowing the ramifications, all of it."

The Deputy gave him a hard look, but didn't deny the accusation. "It served a purpose."

"And that would be?"

"To put pressure on him. Sooner or later, the little fucker will screw up. And I'll be there. I'll get both him and his accomplice. It's probably some other little fruit--"

"That's enough." The Sheriff's voice was quiet, but the Deputy instantly shut up.

Mulder knew that he had to get Tristan Hunt out of this mess somehow.

=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--

Outside, Tristan arrived back at the Sheriff's station. They should just paint his name on one of the parking spaces, he thought. He wasn't sure why he was here other than the fact that he wanted to see Agent Mulder again. And if that wasn't insane enough, last night he'd had more nightmares last when he'd finally fallen asleep from exhaustion.

God, he wanted this to be over. He just wanted to pay the fine and go home.

He went inside and was shown to the briefing room again. A few minutes later, Agent Mulder arrived with the Sheriff behind him. Oh shit, that bastard Simmons was with him too. He'd been the one who'd pressed him the hardest and made sure that he knew that some little queer wasn't going to make a fool out of him. That man truly hated him for what he was, not because he thought he'd committed a murder. God knows what he'd been telling Agent Mulder about him. He didn't want Simmons to be here.

Mulder saw the change in Tristan's face when he saw Simmons and he knew his presence was not going to be conducive to drawing the young man out. He'd have to figure a way around this. Mulder sat down across the table, noting that he looked tired and he knew that more dreams had kept him from sleeping. "Thanks for coming in, Mr. Hunt."

Tristan nodded, then suddenly wanting to hear the Agent say his name he added, "You can call me Tristan."

"Ok, Tristan." Mulder repeated the name back to him as people always do when given permission to use a first name and Tristan liked the way it sounded coming from him. "You had more dreams last night didn't you?"

How did he know that, Tristan wondered. He nodded and both Mulder and Sheriff sat up a little more, whereas Simmons gave a barely disguised snort. Tristan noticed that Mulder gave the deputy an irritated glance before turning back to him and opening his notebook.

"Can you tell me about it?"

"This was a little different. I mean, it didn't involve anyone new, I...I don't think he's killed anyone for a while. But it was still different."

"Different how? Tell me what you saw."

"I saw the last man who died again. He was in a dark room; he was lying on the floor. There was blood everywhere. Before it was often like a still picture, like a slide show almost; but this was more like a regular dream, where you move and interact. This was more like I was there, I could see more, but I couldn't hear anything."

"When you say a dark room, do you mean a real room, like in a house? Or is it like a warehouse maybe?"

Tristan shook his head. "It was dark, there seemed to be single light source shining on the person, like those old movies where someone is being interrogated. The guy was in the middle of the light and I couldn't see beyond the light. You know how when you're driving your car at night and you turn the light on inside? Like that."

"Was he alive?"

"I don't think so, he was lying so still on the ground...the...the floor had dark stains on it from his blood."

"Is there anything else you remember?"

Tristan closed his eyes a moment, concentrating. "The other images that I got came just as I woke up. Somehow, I'd gotten from the dark room to the field. It was just as the sun was coming up it seemed and as the light come up it I saw that I was standing over the man in the field with his face blown off and the blood and the gore...Oh Jesus..." Tristan looked away, disturbed by the picture that grew fresh in his mind as he talked about it.

The Sheriff started to say something but Mulder gave him a shake of his head. He then leaned back and let Tristan have a moment before he asked his next question. "Why do you think these dreams were different, Tristan? Why are you getting more detail?"

"I don't know, I've thought about it all morning. It's like I was there...watching. But I don't know why I have to watch--I don't want to." Tristan looked out the window. "I don't want to see what's happening to these men."

Another nasty snort came from Simmons and Mulder felt his fingers tighten on the pen he was writing with. He concentrated back on the troubled young man. "I was wondering if you had given any more thought to what we talked about yesterday."

Dark suspicious eyes looked back at him now. "You mean the hypnosis thing?"

Mulder nodded and started to answer when Simmons butted in.

"Look boy--this is horseshit and you're jerking us around here..."

Mulder turned to him in irritation because now wasn't the time to play bush league good cop-bad cop. "Deputy Simmons--"

But Simmons plowed on, "He's full of crap and you are too, Agent Mulder. This kid is playing you; he's seeing exactly what he wants to see--"

Tristan slammed his hand down on the table as he turned on the Deputy in anger. "What makes you think I'd WANT to see that?" he yelled, his voice cracking. He lowered his head onto his hands. "God, why would anyone want to see that?"

Mulder was stunned at the outburst. Not at Tristan's anger, but because those were virtually the exact words he'd said to Scully once when she'd questioned the validity of his own nightmares. He knew that frustration.

Just then the receptionist opened the door and told the Sheriff he had a call waiting and he left the room. A moment later, Simmons rose to his feet, standing over Tristan. "What I meant, boy, is that you're seeing what you see because you were there." He leaned down next to Tristan, his voice low. "And it's only a matter of time until I can prove it, you little bastard. This is a game you're going to lose--Not all of us are fools."

He gave a defiant look to Mulder, who'd risen to his feet in anger. After a brief stare-down, Simmons left the room, slamming the door as he went, leaving Tristan and Mulder alone.

Mulder stared at the bowed head across the table from him as he slowly sat back down. He had to get Tristan out of this environment if he was going to reach him, get him to explore the depths of his own mind. He knew the horror of seeing something that you couldn't get your mind to turn away from, no matter how hard you tried. He knew the fear that the ugly thoughts and pictures entering into your head unbidden could evoke. He knew the frustration of having no one understand or believe. He knew that aloneness. And it hurt him to see all that so raw and visible in another person.

He saw more of himself in this young man than he cared to admit.

Suddenly feeling awkward about his realization, he stood again and moved to the far corner of the room where there was a coffeepot. He started to pour himself a cup that he didn't really want. Behind him, he heard Tristan's voice again.

"I'm sorry. I just want my life back," he said, his voice calmer now.

Mulder set the pot down and turned back. Tristan was speaking from behind the shelter of his hands, his shoulders sagging in weariness. "I'm so tired," he said. "I just want to sleep and not see. I just want it to go away. I'm sorry."

God, the kid was apologizing for being victimized. Mulder slowly crossed the room to stand next to him. He stretched out his hand, hesitated, and then completed the gesture, laying his large hand gently on the back of Tristan's bowed head, feeling the silky hair under his palm. No words, just offering the simple message that the young man huddled in the chair wasn't alone.

Tristan felt the comforting contact from the man whose touch he'd wanted to feel so much. God, the gesture almost seemed like a small gift because for the first time he knew for sure that Mulder believed him. The relief came in a rush and it was all he could do to not turn and wrap his arms around Mulder's waist as he stood near. But he was mindful of where he was, he was mindful that the man wouldn't return the gesture or his feelings. He was mindful that he wasn't likely to get any of the things he needed. So, instead, he stayed motionless with his head in his hands and tried to calm his racing heart.

Mulder looked down on the embattled young man with great empathy. He wanted to impart some hope to him and knew of only one way; with his own truth. Removing his hand, he crouched down next to his chair, eye level now. "Tristan," he asked softly for his attention.

At the sound of Mulder's calm voice, Tristan slowly dropped his hands and turned his head, meeting Mulder's eyes, which were much too close for comfort and drawing him in further. God, he was just way too close. Seeing way too damn much. He took a deep breath. Jesus, this was as much a nightmare as the visions and just as consuming. He stared at Mulder's mouth, at that exquisitely beautiful mouth, made for the intimacy of a kiss. As if on cue, his lips moved.

"Tristan, if we can catch this guy and stop the murders, the visions and nightmares will go away."

Moving his gaze back to Mulder's eyes, he shook his head impatiently. "How can you possibly know that?"

"Because they did for me."

Tristan was stunned as he stared back at Mulder, thinking it was a joke. But the man's expression was serious, unsmiling. "This has happened to you? Weird shit like I've been seeing?"

Suddenly and quite unaccountably, Mulder now smiled at him; a goofy-assed smile that somehow didn't quite fit his face. It was the first that he'd seen from the man. Then a dark laugh snickered out as he shook his head at the question, looking at him with something that was like amusement. "Tristan, I've seen weird shit like you wouldn't even begin to believe."

Mulder straightened back up, still chuckling to himself. But Tristan knew he wasn't laughing at him and that it was somehow a private joke that only Mulder understood. He watched as the agent crossed back to the table where the coffeepot sat and began to pour himself a cup.

And Tristan found that he didn't like that he'd moved so far away from him. He observed Mulder as he stood at the coffee bar, trying to figure him out. He again noticed that the clothes he wore were finely tailored, of good quality. Stuff that Tristan knew was pretty expensive for a G-man to own. He'd taken off his suit jacket and under the crisp white shirt he could tell his body was slender, yet well shaped. He had a nice long back tapering to a slim waist. Mulder shifted his weight to one leg, unconsciously showing off a fine curve of enticing ass. And God, those long, long legs. Tristan's attention again shifted from the visions in his head to the area below the waist as Mulder turned back to him and gestured to offer him a cup of coffee.

God, he was just too fucking handsome, he thought. No singular feature on his face would be called conventionally handsome, but it all worked wonderfully together somehow. And what would it be like to have those long legs wrapped around him as he moved hard and deep into his body? What would he be like to fuck?

Tristan mentally slapped himself. Shit, what the hell was he thinking? He was fighting for his life here--for his sanity. And here he was getting horny for a gorgeous FBI agent; a man who was here expressly to pin seven murders on him.

But even as he thought the words, he knew they weren't true. He knew he was still clinging to a self-imposed barrier and failing miserably. He met Mulder's eyes and shook his head at the offer of coffee.

Mulder came back over and sat across from him. "I would like to revisit some of the places where the bodies were found. I would like you to go with me. I'd like to start with the quarry where you found the first body."

"I don't know why you think going out to the quarry is going to help. The cops have been all over it."

Mulder didn't tell Tristan the whole truth, which was that he wanted to see Tristan's reactions to the quarry. Since he hadn't been able to get him to agree to the hypnosis yet, he wanted to observe Tristan in a setting where he might have better recollection, away from here.

"I just want to see it, something can always be missed," he answered. "And there's no reason for the Sheriff or the Deputy to go." Mulder smiled again a bit. "I'm sure Simmons is busy dropping his white hood off at the dry cleaners."

After a moment, Tristan laughed and nodded his head.

Within a half-hour, they were in Tristan's jeep heading outside of town. It was a hot day, well into the eighties in temperature. When they reached the trail, Tristan pulled over. They got out and Tristan went around to the back and got out a couple of bottled waters that they'd picked up at the gas station. As he came back around, he stopped up short when he saw Mulder sliding off his coat and tossing it on the back seat. Just a slight breeze ruffled his hair and he was one of the few people that Tristan had ever seen whose skin actually looked good in direct sunlight. The FBI man then proceeded to pull his tie off, unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt, and then started to roll up the sleeves. Tristan swallowed hard. Oh please, keep going, he thought.

Mulder looked up in time to see the strange look on Tristan's face. "What?"

Tristan was embarrassed at being caught drooling and decided go on the offensive. Why should he be the only one to feel so damn off-kilter? "Nothing, I was just enjoying a real GQ moment in the making."

"A what?" Mulder looked confused as he took the water Tristan handed him.

"Do you have any clue how fucking sexy you are?" Tristan laughed a little. "No, of course you don't. Your sexuality is completely natural; it's completely unconscious. You don't try at all."

Mulder was now looking at him in a slightly horrified manner. He was practically squirming. "Am I making you uncomfortable?" Tristan asked in a deliberately innocent voice.

It took a moment for Mulder to answer. "Yes...Very."

"Sorry. It was just an observation. Come on, the quarry is this way." Tristan turned and headed off towards the path. He'd gone a few feet and noticed that Mulder hadn't followed him yet. He turned back around to see the man just staring at him. "Come on," he said nodding his head towards the hillside. "You're the one who wanted to see this place." And he turned and headed on up the trail.

Mulder stared after Tristan, fully aware that he was being mind-fucked and reaction-tested. He knew that Tristan was playing with the totally insane and yet deep-rooted fear of straight men that somehow "gayness" would rub off on them if they were in close proximity to a homosexual. He was testing him to see if he would turn tail and run.

But the problem was that he was far from running. In fact, the idea that Tristan found him attractive pleased him on a level so fundamentally deep that it scared him. Jesus, what was the deal with that? Mulder gripped his bottle of water and followed Tristan up the trail.

The heat of the day felt good. Mulder hated the cold. After nearly freezing to death at both the north and south poles, he'd had quite enough of cold weather. The summer day agreed with him just fine.

They walked in silence for quite some time before Tristan spoke again. "I'm sorry about jerking your chain back there, I guess I was expecting more of the reactions I've gotten around here lately."

"Why have you stayed in Wind River, Mr. Hunt? You're smart, you could make something of yourself somewhere else. There are places that are more...tolerant."

"It's Tristan." He took his time in answering. "I suppose because I don't know that 'out there' is any better than right here. I guess because a known situation is better than a unknown."

Mulder nodded, he could understand that. He'd felt much the same way before he went off to Oxford. He'd been unhappy where he was, and yet it was familiar. He knew the way around the emotional land mines in his life. Going off to live in another country, where he'd never been and knew no one had been one of the most difficult things he'd ever done. It was uncharted territory.

They reached the quarry and Mulder looked down over the lake. It was beautiful here. Living in the city, you could forget about nature once in a while. It looked to be a cool, calm place. Tranquil except for the fact that a brutally murdered body had been discovered here. He walked to the edge of the water.

"So you said you and your friends used to come up here?"

"Oh yeah. All of the kids from the town come up here. We used to swim, hang out after school." Tristan looked out over the blue lake and shrugged a little. "Make all our big plans."

Mulder turned back to him. "Big plans?"

"The big dreams of little kids in a little town." He laughed a little as he joined Mulder at the edge of the lake. "My friend Bret was going to be a rock star, but of course he's a mechanic at the gas station, with a wife and two kids. Robbie was going to be a pro football player. He manages the bar where I work."

"And what was your plan?"

Tristan looked a little reluctant, almost embarrassed. He looked away over the water, squinting in the bright sunlight. "I wanted to go to California and work in the movies. I mean in like the special effects stuff. I like computers." He shrugged, "But I'm a bartender in Wind River. I'm just like Robbie and Bret. A nobody going nowhere."

Mulder was concerned about the fatalistic tone. "You make it sound like it's too late to go to California. You're only twenty-three for Christ's sake. When this is over you can still go."

Tristan turned now and looked at him, "Are you what you wanted to be when you grew up?" he asked with a defensive edge.

Mulder was taken aback for a moment by his question. This was something he'd not much thought about for good reason. But while the story between twelve and thirty-seven was too long and too complex to relate, the answer was really quite simple.

"No. No, I'm not."

To Mulder's surprise, Tristan smiled gently at his admission; not in triumph, but with kind commiseration as he nodded in understanding. "And what plans did you leave behind, Agent Mulder?"

Mulder was actually tempted to tell him. But instead, he just shook his head. "It doesn't matter." He wanted to turn the focus away from himself. Discussing lost boyhood dreams with this man was not why he'd brought him out here. He returned to the reason for their visit. "Where did you find the body?"

Tristan's face changed. He turned away and led Mulder over to the spot where he'd found the body. He described how, in the dream, he'd seen bits of the surrounding areas. Almost like photographs. It had taken him a long time to remember where it was and make the pieces fit. As they talked, Mulder again mentioned the hypnosis. While not agreeing to it, Tristan seemed a little more responsive to the idea. Mulder wondered if perhaps yet another sleepless night had just made him more desperate or if maybe he trusted him a little more now.

"I just don't see how the hell putting me to sleep will bring you anymore information than I've given you, I've told you everything I've seen."

"But your dreams are unfocused. A therapist can just help you center that focus. Hypnosis is really not a sleep state, though it would appear to be at first glance. And really, it's just self-hypnosis ultimately, the therapist just acts as a guide. You're in control."

"But it's a trance thing, right?"

"The brain waves do slow down passing from the beta to alpha stages and even the theta stage during deep trance. But in a lot of ways, it's not much different from the same feeling of meditative state we feel while listening to music, or reading a good book. Have you ever cried during a movie?"

Tristan looked at him strangely. "I bawled my eyes out during 'Old Yeller'. I hate it when they kill the dog in a movie."

Mulder gave a small laugh. "Me too. But that's what I mean. You knew that the dog didn't really die. But you focused in on what you were seeing and you felt the little boy's pain as though it was your own. And yet you were in total control. You knew you could turn the movie off or walk away if you choose to. The power is still all yours. Hypnosis gives you control to understand, it doesn't take it away. When you were out here trying to find this place the first time, you knew that the answer was in your dream and you were able to finally put the bit of remembered dream with something you recognized. Hypnosis might help you do more of that more efficiently."

Tristan listened closely and considered this a moment. "How is it done?" he asked finally.

"There's a lot of different ways, but generally, the use of progressive relaxation inductions can often be the most successful. Facilitators often use a relaxation technique which has you imagine being in a safe or peaceful place; then they help guide the subject through their memories and then awaken them back to full consciousness. But there are many different methods and people will respond differently to each."

Looking at him, Tristan believed that Mulder didn't intend to bring him any harm and that he truly thought this was a tool that might help. "Can you do it?"

"I've been trained, but it should be done by someone who is really a specialist, I know someone we can--"

"No, I want you to do it."

Mulder shook his head. "No, it's not appropriate for me to do it."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because I'm conducting an investigation. Like it or not, you're a suspect in the eyes of a lot of people. It needs to be a third party."

"I don't want some stranger digging around in my head." Tristan was getting increasingly upset.

"I can't do it, Tristan. The session should be recorded; it needs to be done by a professional. I can't--"

"SHIT!" Tristan walked away a moment in frustration. He stood looking over the lake as Mulder watched him run his hands through his long hair, before he turned back. "I don't trust anyone else."

As Mulder looked at Tristan, he weighed his lesser evils. What Tristan was asking him to do bordered on unethical. It had been many years since he'd done any sessions. He knew what to do; he'd had extensive training in order to facilitate his own interest. But this was something else entirely.

But he knew that one of the most important psychological factors was the trust of the person being hypnotized and that person's desire to remember. It could make all the difference; it could save someone's life. He had to try.

"If I show you how it's done, will you consider letting a therapist work with you further?"

It took him a moment, but Tristan finally nodded his acquiescence to Mulder's bargain.

"OK then. Come over here." He motioned them over to a shaded area under a large tree as Tristan followed him. It was a quiet afternoon, one of those beautiful, glad-to-be-alive days. Warm sun, slight breeze, and blue skies with clouds. This was as good a place as any to do this. Tristan sat down cross-legged and settled back against the tree. Mulder sat down facing him.

"Relax back against the tree and just let your hands rest in your lap." Tristan did as he was instructed. "Now look at me." He raised his eyes and met Mulder's gaze.

"All right, I want you to fix your eyes right here." Mulder took the index finger of his right hand and pointed to his eyes. His voice took on a low soothing tone and a rhythmic cadence as he began to speak. "I want you to look right here. Don't take your eyes from mine. Don't move or speak or nod your head or say 'uh-huh' until I ask you to. If you'll follow me, you can enter a very deep and pleasant state of hypnosis in just a few moments."

Tristan stared into Mulder's eyes as he was instructed; the sound of his voice was seductive and warm, drawing him in.

"Now, take a deep breath and fill up your lungs. That's right." Mulder inhaled deeply himself as he raised his right hand and made a fist. "Now exhale." As Tristan exhaled, Mulder released his closed fist and spread the fingers of his hands out gently, as Tristan followed along, his eyes never leaving Mulder's. God, they were beautiful, he thought before he returned his concentration to Mulder's voice and following his instructions.

"Breathe deep again." Together they repeated the breathing ritual many times, as Mulder held Tristan's gaze in place. The heat of the day combined with the soothing sound of Mulder's breath and voice, brought Tristan's concentration all to one spot, Mulder's eyes. And surprisingly, his mental focus stopped wandering.

"Now, I'm going to count from five down to one. As I do, your eyelids will grow heavy, and sleepy, By the time I reach the count of one, they'll close into sleep, deeper sleep than you've experienced. All right, Five." Mulder began to move his hand rhythmically, as though keeping a slow beat to music only he and Tristan could hear. "Eyelids heavy, droopy, drowsy and sleepy. Four." Mulder kept his hand movement and voice at the same slow lazy cadence. "Three. The next time you blink, you'll feel unwilling to open your eyes again. That's right. Two. They're closing, closing, closing, closing, closing them, close them, they